NORTHERN PLANNER

There’s a texture and a language British pubs that never get’s expressed very often, a culture around ordering a drink that might be very alien to someone from another country. You must attract the attention of the barman without making any sound or waving cash at him, never ever jump the invisible queue at the bar for example.  No one is allowed to complain about the slow service unless they’re a regular, non-regular’s who try this will end up very sober and very thirsty. You know that if you don’t buy your round it won’t get mentioned, but your friends will be talking about it when you’re not there. By the way, I wonder if there’s a new convention developing now that more and more smokers have to go outside for a cigarette?

I’m not a fan of the cold. I like Autumn when it’s fresh and still a bit warm, but once the clocks chance it goes dark, miserable and cold. On the bright side, it’s a perfect excuse to cook some hearty winter warmer food.

Cassoulet is my favourite food ever,it takes an afternoon to make which is sort of half the fun. Just some time on my own making stuff.

There isn’t one agreed recipe for Cassoulet and different regions of France argue over who originated it. The recipe I use is a hybrid of something I read in the Observer, a recipe from a former French flatmate and a bit of invention. For me there’s nothing like the thick meaty taste of sausages, pork belly, bacon and duck,  and breadcrumbs mixed with garlicky beans. It almost makes you glad it’s winter (tastes better than it looks).

Meanwhile Kirsten at work’s been busy baking.

I was sorting through some cuttings and found this story about the Ig Nobel Awards. Organised by Harvard, they’re for the quirkier side of science.  The thinking and rigour is just the same, but these achievements are supposed to "make people laugh and then make them think". I like the way they use a mass of knowledge, learning and experience to make something most of us wouldn’t understand, or care about, into some brilliance, interest and relavance for us all. A useful skill for planners when you think of it.

One award went to a scientist who studied the mystery of why fingernails scraping on blackboards are excruciating, another was for a study for why spaghetti breaks into more than one piece when bent. The one I like is a teenager repellant that emits a high pitched shriek audible to younger people (our abilty to hear high frequency dwindles as we get older).

I started this blog with a vague idea of talking about life as planner outside of the London bubble, but it’s something I’ve not talked about for a while. Maybe I should do it more since it’s a different perspective to life in a big communications hub like London.

Out here, we’re watching the prolonged death of big advertising networks and the struggle for integration in London with a wry smile, since we went through it ten years ago when there wasn’t enough advertising budget to go around. Being able to do digital, DM and design as well as advertising is second nature out here, but while London agencies break new ground, we’re getting left behind when we should be seizing the initiative by the scruff of its scrawny little neck.

One problem is a kind of inverted snobbery that sticks two fingers up to anything that could be pretentious overcomplication. Complexity? Pah! Blogging? Never catch on so keep it simple!So some of the big thinking going one glides by while we remain oblivious.

Another is the continued obsession with media as commodities, "We’re good at advertising but we can also do new media". With a few notable exceptions, not enough agencies have got their heads around creating ideas and then seeing what fits. They’re still asking, "Do you want a website or maybe a shelf wobbler?". It’s a shame since many places never split up media from creative.

You don’t need me to tell you that ideas are the future of this complicated new world, or that planners can be the pioneers that make sense of it all, but I get sad at the opportunity we’re missing out on because planners are few and far between out here(and many are glorified researchers).

There’s so much going on at the moment in blogs; discussions on complexity, compression, peer to peer stuff, zero media budget, but it’s passing most of us by. While others do campaigns around YouTube, many of us don’t know what a blog is.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m relieved bloggers are generous enough to share, it’s certainly a help to me, and I’m thrilled that I’ve got Northern Planning evenings for a group hug with the other lonely planners out there. Planners are the future ever where, but doubly so out here.

Just back from a two day course in London on brainstorming. I’m still worn out, which reminds me how much of the normal working day you’re not really using your brain.

I really like these APG courses, of course you get to learn new stuff, of course you get to meet some heavy weight tutors who really know what they’re doing, but I like them for another reason too…

It’s a bit lonely being a planner, doubly so if you work ‘Up North’. It’s nice to spend some time with more people like you, swap stories and have a bit of a group hug. I feel just as stimulated from the other delegates as I do from then course content. This one was espescially good with some from The Netherlands, Sweden, Dallas and, best of all, three from Portugal who did their national dance as a penalty for being late.

Off to London Monday/Tuesday. Until then.

I found this in my desk this week:

Almost two years to the day since we flew to the Maldives for our honeymoon I find one of the hotel tea bags – brought back just because they seemed to taste so nice. Couldn’t resist brewing it up – still very, very good.

This connection of events seemed a trifle spooky, and during this chilly week it’s made me not a little whistful for this:

To find out how much blogging I can do before I forget I have a real job, I’ve quietly been writing a ton of stuff on my agency blog, which is work- kind of. I’m finding it a really useful way to go deep into a brand and find out what its voice feels like. It’s also proving useful for getting the tone and manner into creative brains in a non-threatening way.

I’ve had a really fruitful experience as one half of a planning/creative team with Stu, although he keeps apologising for jumping to execution, which is actually the point (although I’m worried he’ll tell you it’s a cunning way for Andrew to interfere with the creative process). Next time there is a chance to play around awhile, I wonder how useful it would be to write a secret blog for the brand and use that as the bedrock of the creative brief – or even write it together?

When I started blogging I wasn’t sure what I was doing it for,apart from some vague idea that someone should speak up for planning ‘Up North’.  One thing I never expected was to meet new people in the flesh. I never imagined it may lead to working relationships.

Nevertheless, James Boardwell, a veteran from Northern Planning nights, has gone freelance and he’s coming in today to talk about working together on some digital stuff. Thanks to blogging, we already know we get on, which is half the battle. I’ll get go nick his expertise on the tinterweb, he’ll get to tap into my vast knowledge of…. er…… tea.